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The Night Stevie Wonder met the Jazz Mafia by Adam Theis 09.27.09

As I’m writing this, the day after Stevie Wonder showed up at my band’s gig I’m still on a musical high that feels like it will last a lifetime – it was the best night of my life. Last night was magical in so many ways even before Stevie showed up, so as you can imagine, everyone lost it when he got up to sing with us!

It’s getting kinda hard to retell the story because I start getting a bit emotional so I figured I should write down my recollections of what happened so people can share the joy that one human being brought to a whole community in a little jazz club in the Mission on September 26th, 2009.

So, this all happened at a new spot in San Francisco called CODA Jazz and Supper Club which is only 2 months old. Coda is the newest home of our 8 year long series “Jazz Mafia Tuesdays” and also where we host the party that happened last night when Stevie showed up called “Last Saturdays Remix Live” with Supertaster. As the night approached there was a lot of magic around the excitement of our good friend and Jazz Mafia supporter Davin (Showy Mcshow) celebrating his 30th Birthday – It’s kind of an annual thing that we do with him. There were a TON of his friends there which really helped to get the vibe going. Supertaster, who is kind of the black sheep of the Jazz Mafia, got a rare opportunity to perform in front of a full house of beautiful music loving party people on a weekend which was magic in itself since we usually play the off-nights. In addition to the amazing vocals of Karyn Paige and Joe Bagale we were joined by Dublin and Seneca on the mic for some amazing freestyles. I’m still laughing at the “Love Battle” where Dublin battled Seneca using compliments instead of put-downs, it was too many laughs and it was kinda gay! Seneca was so uncomfortable!

As Supertaster got ready to take the stage for our first set Chris Pastena, who is one of the owners, let us know that Stevie Wonder had come by the club but for some reason didn’t come in, maybe because it was too crowded (it was filled to capacity) or maybe because he was hungry but the kitchen was closed….Anyway we were BUMMED that we missed an opportunity to see and maybe play music for one of our musical GODS. We soon got over it and had an amazing time playing for our friends and family who were possibly the craziest audience we’ve had in SF in a long time. After the break as we were getting into the second set someone came up and whispered to me “Stevie Wonder is here, he is coming in the club!”. The rest of the band soon found out and we were all looking at each other like “WTF?”

As we continued our set of soul, hip-hop beats, jazz breaks and the like we were encountered with the question of “What do you do when Stevie Wonder walks into the small club you are playing?”. Supertaster is probably the most versatile band I’ve ever played with so the answer to that question could be one of hundreds of directions. I’m not sure how we decided but the way it went down felt very natural so I’m happy about it. I wanted to make sure to feature Karyn and Joe on vocals since Dublin and Seneca had gotten their turn on the mic. We did a Karyn and Joe original which was very inspired of course. After that it was feeling like we had to wind things up soon because it was 1:30am. Occasionally I would look back to see if Stevie was still there and much to my surprise he was not there with a giant entourage and he seemed to be just bobbing his head to the music. I also noticed him clapping and looking enthusiastic when I gave some mentions of our scene and what we’ve been building in SF over the past decade, felt good to know he was listening to that.

We ended up playing a Stevie song “You haven’t Done Nothing” which Bagale and Mcgee sang and I dedicated to the Birthday boy Davin. I didn’t want to even mention Stevie on the mic because sometimes celebrities don’t seem to dig that right? It was clear that after that song things were not meant to end yet so we played John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy” as an encore. Joe absolutely SLAYS that song and it was a fun way to end the night in style. As the song neared the last section I suddenly feared for my life as a large horde of people rushed the stage with cameras in hand. As I looked up there was Stevie Wonder being led by his body guard Eric!

When Stevie Wonder got on stage at Coda he acknowledged the band and was very polite and gracious. Stevie got a mic and did a short “sermon” about how beautiful this music is – talked about the connection between John Lennon and Donny Hathaway, and how those songs moved him when he first heard them. I think Joe’s version of that song really did inspire Stevie to get up on stage with us – I feel like if we woulda played a funk jam instead, it would’ve probably not happened the same at all. Anyway, as the song wound down and Joe gave 110% we could tell Stevie wanted to SING too – he was inspired. So we chatted with him for 5 seconds and decided on the tune “All Day Sucker” which is a tune we used to play a lot in Supertaster and also with Realistic Orchestra for the annual Stevie Wonder Birthday Tribute that we put on. I have to say that when he started singing the song it was beyond goosebumps…the crowd was going completely insane yet being very respectful, the band was playing better than ever and we honestly had no idea that Stevie would even want to sing with us. He did what I felt like was my favorite version of that song ever. As the tune was nearing a stopping point a leaned over to Bagale and suggested testing the water by playing the riff from “Can’t Help it”, the hit song he wrote for Michael Jackson. Joe gave me a huge smile and head nod.

It was a little weird when I merged into the bass line from Can’t Help It, Stevie was still singing All Day, and he kinda froze for a second to get his bearings – I was kinda freaked out because I felt like “I just cut off Stevie Wonder!!” Crap!!” But it took him literally 2 seconds and BAM! one of my favorite songs EVER came to life on stage live as Stevie sang those first few notes of a song that haunts many of us as one of Michael’s most beautiful performances. Seriously, when he started singing just the shouts from the band alone were like the rumble of a crowd of a thousand. He broke it down and said a little bit about MJ and how special the song is to him – He also mentioned that he wrote the tune in San Francisco, Sausalito to be exact.

Even though Stevie sings the tune in a much lower key than the MJ version we do, you wouldn’t have known he was struggling – He did vocal acrobatics that I’ve never heard anyone do, even Stevie Wonder! The tunes with him went off as if we’d rehearsed them with him – many people asked me if we knew he was coming; a definite NEGATORY on that one.

I have to also give the band props – Looking over at them during these tunes they held it DOWN, calm cool and collected but with hot FIRE – I felt like I was playing with some seasoned professionals who were BRINGING IT. As the song wound down Stevie thanked everybody talked a little more and basically brought a cloud of peace to the North end of San Francisco’s Mission District that will probably last for a long time.

It was well after 2am but Mr. Wonder stuck around and spent time with all of the band, taking pictures, listening to us talk about the Jazz Mafia and being an all around amazing person. I was lucky enough to hand him the new Brass, Bows & Beats CD of my Symphony and he seemed very interested when I told him about it. As our time together wound down, has asked us to huddle around him and imparted some of the most beautiful and inspiring information a human could ever communicate – true Stevie, true story, that just HAPPENED.

Out of ALL the musicians alive on this planet Stevie Wonder is THE musician I’ve wanted to meet the most for quite some time now. This was indeed a dream come true because not only we get to meet him but we got to share some beautiful music and play for him as well as the highest honor, getting to make music with one of the most amazing musicians and human beings ever.

Other highlights include Stevie singing a clip of his “Happy Birthday” to the B-day Boy Davin who was standing right on front of him. The look on D’s face!!!!!
Waking up and realizing it wasn’t a dream was awesome.
getting calls and texts all night from fellow music lovers.

Another observation that really impressed me is how the whole time Stevie Wonder was there it never felt like some paparazzi b.s. that seems to be everywhere famous people are. People were super polite and gave Stevie the space he most likely needed in a cramped club like that. Thanks to everyone who was there for making it a memorable night and helping us get the vibe just right so that someone like Stevie Wonder felt like that was where he had to be for his Saturday night.

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It’s absolutely unbelievable what we experienced here. Come along with me as I try to recollect what happened this week for me and my friends from San Francisco’s Jazz Mafia.Last week, for the first time in Jazz Mafia’s 10 years of existence, we successfully managed to fly 30 musicians from San Francisco to New York for our first ever East Coast show. We performed Brass, Bows & Beats at an amazing venue in New York called Le Poisson Rouge. We started working on this tour almost a year ago. Thousands of hours of planning, coordinating, emailing, phones, rehearsals etc.. went into making this very large scale event happen. Things went relatively smooth aside form some crazy red-eye flights, all being crammed into small quarters and long drives in vans with no space or time to eat! But hey, we’re all professionals and what do pros do? They make it happen! So that’s what we did.

The LPR show went off without a hitch. Sound check was smooth, the band was on fire and the venue was beyond cooperative with us. We featured special guest Dana Leong on trombone, cello and electronics. Dana grew up with our drummer P Dub and is now one of the heaviest hitters in the New York jazz and beyond scene. Dana is a very inspiring performer to me so having him with BBB brought many smiles to everyone including me. We rocked about a 70 minute set, played for a full, energetic house, and then commenced to take on loading out all our stuff which is quite an effort with a band that size.

We have three 15 passenger vans, one of them hauls a huge trailer with “Covergirl” advertisements on it. Very strange. (Something about the guy who rented it to us got paid grips of $ to have the banner on there for a tour and now it’s kinda peeling off on one side, or maybe he tried to remove it and it was just too much trouble.) Anyway, after our show in New York all 30 of us are out in a super busy street with the van/trailer loading up – It was a sight! (See pics) Luggage and instruments everywhere all over the sidewalk on a busy Friday night in the West Village. Awesomeness. Of course an impromptu street jam ensued, but this time instead of being instigated by the horns it was the strings that started it by playing some Swedish Folk songs, then some “Beat it” then I don’t know what.  It was crazy. Then we stumbled across the street led by our friend Chris Pastena, to one of his favorite spots “…something Castaway, fun place. We took it over, chaos happened and we left for Montreal at 1 a.m..

As we took the stage for what would be the biggest audience me and most of the musicians have ever played in front of, the situation was surprisingly calm. There had been so much hard work and planning for this moment, that somehow, miraculously, everything felt taken care of and ready. We got on stage, got situated, and took it in. After I got my music in order, I turned around to one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen in my life – people as far as the eye could see, with more people walking towards the stage in all directions -kinda like an ant hill. Weird. I still have no idea how many people were there but had to be around 30,000-60,000.

Set two brought out some of the different sides of the Jazz Mafia; we featured Karyn and Aima on the new song “Realize My Fantasy” that we wrote together. Joe Bagale rocked his “Love Song,” Colin Hogan played his Tango arrangement on accordian and Dublin repped Shotgun with “We Take it Back.” A really quirky/interesting note is we did my arrangement of one my favorite Joe Bagale songs called “Curiosity” that is on his album and features a beautiful bass trumpet solo by our friend Mike Williams, who as I said, was playing as a guest with us on this tour. In my arrangement I orchestrated Mike’s recorded solo for the entire 20 piece horn section who trades off the melodies and plays harmonized versions of his solo. It was awesome to see the look on Mike’s face when we hit that song. We closed the set out to the audience just standing there screaming for more! Montreal audience’s are just too much!

Of course the night didn’t end there – We went to a spot nearby called Metropolis and saw our Canadian trombone player Matthew play with one of his many groups which invited many of us up on stage for jamming until 3am (when the clubs close here). As we all were hanging outside getting ready to head back to the hotel I got my horn out and Brass Band mania begun! As soon as we started playing it started POURING rain! It actually felt really good. We paraded through the streets of Montreal with a big posse just being complete hoodlums making tons of noise at 4 a.m. People are sitting at Subway Sandwiches having a late night snack and BAM! in comes a brass band and  20 people dancing and partying…I’m so glad we didn’t get arrested. Other memorable images were Brandon Werlin’s hair when it’s wet and Shaina running barefoot through the water in the gutters.Of course that wasn’t the end…it’s blurry at this point but I remember being back at the hotel in one of the band member’s rooms for a huge party and Colin Hogan displaying his incredible talent for JUGGLING. I sat there staring at him for an hour! He has these awesome glowing juggling balls that change color and…ok, this is just rambling at this point. Time for me to get outta bed and get some food and play another show tonight!

Oh ya and we decided we love Montreal so much that we are going to stay here for the next three days! We head to Toronto Thursday morning. Now we are just out with the “Jazz Mafia Circus” performing a revue of different Jazz Mafia bands – The Shotgun Wedding Quintet, Joe Bagale, Supertaster, Karyn Paige, Brass Mafia….just having a great time.

More to come!

As we made the drive down to LA we were already juiced from such a wild week (see my previous post for more info on that.) I spent most of Saturday kicking it at the festival, saw Chick Corea, Marcus Miller, Naturally 7 (acapella band) and Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. I was surprised how the acoustic jazz acts, and basically all the instrumental acts, didn’t receive much audience attention on Saturday. The bands with vocals were definitely the hit. No surprise right?! A group of the JM road dogs went to the Roxy after the fest to see Uriah Duffy’s new band The Memorials led by ex-Mars Volta drummer Thomas Pridgen and featuring Kev Choice’s vocalist Vivica Hawkins . They rocked out with so much soul, like no other group I’ve seen lately.

Sunday morning we I was surprised to hear that the whole band made it to the 9:30 a.m. load in at the Hollywood Bowl, and I was the last person to get there. Amazing. A really interesting thing about the Hollywood Bowl is the rotating stage. Two acts fit on the “turntable” stage which allows for non-stop music through the day without any breaks. Another interesting thing about the Playboy Festival is that all the groups play 45 minute sets, regardless of how mega famous they are; there were some entertaining moments seeing how the various artist’s negotiated the situation when the turntable stage started to move at the end of their 45 minute allotted time slots.

As we got on the stage to soundcheck it was one of the weirdest feelings I’ve ever experienced – Looking out , or up, at the completely empty Hollywood Bowl, it’s striking how much of a vertical climb the seating covers. We got in trouble for taking pictures of the Bowl but aside from that, the crew and staff were super amazing to us and of course I managed to sneak in a few pictures.

The backstage area was a small city, with all the sets for the acts performing that day completely assembled on movable risers. The efficiency of the whole operation was staggering. Compared to our experience just 2 days before at the Harmony fest it was a completely different operation – At Harmony we had a few crew members helping us out (and they forgot to order microphones…) and at Playboy they had a crew of 24 making sure that every element and detail was taken care of. AWESOME!

As we went onstage – about 1/3 full audience capacity- the band, many of them with hangovers, seemed the most alive I’ve seen in awhile. Even with a very short soundcheck, things were sounding really good on stage as the rotating stage brought us around to the front. The set was epic for sure, everyone played their best and the band was really smoking. I was elated that as we neared the middle of the “At My Window” finale, it seemed like we would possibly be able to finish before the 45 minute timer expired. I’d spent weeks re-orchestrating and editing the piece from over 60 minutes down to under 45 and it worked! Some highlights for me; cruising out into the audience with a wireless mic for my bone solo on “Window” and not dropping my trombone after throwing it about 20 feet in the air and catching it to cue the end of the last note. Success. I regretted not bringing my skateboard and shredding a little on the stage while playing trombone…oh well, maybe next time!

The rest of our day at the Bowl was a great vacation after one of the most intense weeks the Jazz Mafia has ever had. We got to kick it and check out Esperanza Spaulding, she was amazing and is the real deal. Many of us got to meet her and now want to marry her. Irving Mayfield’s New Orleans Jazz Orchestra was swingin’ hard, George Benson sounded a bit cheesy but compared to Manhattan Transfer he seemed like some cutting edge indy artist that just hit the scene. But seriously, I was super impressed with George Benson – I’ve always been a fan but he really slayed it live.

It was truly an honor for the Jazz Mafia to be asked to perform at the Playboy Jazz Festival. We met so many new music lovers and it warmed my heart to see the band come together to a point where it is starting to feel so tight it’s scary! We’re SO looking forward to our first East Coast tour!